Romney, at Abandoned N.H. Bridge, Hits Obama Spending

HILLSBOROUGH, N.H. – Mitt Romney ventured to the Granite State today to stand in front of an abandoned 19th century stone bridge to highlight what he considers to be President Obama’s “wasteful” spending.

“You all know the story of this bridge, this is part of the president’s stimulus plan,” said Romney. “He went out and borrowed $787 billion and said that if we’re allowing him as Congress allowed him to borrow that kind of money, that he would hold unemployment below 8 percent and it hasn’t been below 8 percent since.”

“Now a lot of people said, ‘Boy that’s just outrageous,’” Romney continued. “So they said, “Yeah, but we put in place a whole series of elements that are critical to the future of America.’”

“And you got one behind us right there,” Romney added, pointing to the bridge behind him, which received more than $150,000 in stimulus funds meant to go toward its restoration. Despite that money, the bridge stands idle now, and hasn’t had a car cross it since the 1800s, according to The Associated Press.

“That’s what they’re saying this is the absolute bridge to nowhere, if there ever was one. That’s your stimulus dollars at work,” Romney said. “A bridge that goes nowhere. So I hope the president comes here, takes a look at some of his stimulus programs and there’s a long list by the way of stimulus programs.”

As Romney spoke, ticking off the reasons he believes the bridge exemplifies failed policies by the Obama administration, supporters of the president stood nearby chanting “Obama! Obama!”

Romney addressed the crowd, saying, “It doesn’t get better than this. And you know we have behind us a Greek chorus.”

“And I say that because they remind us that this president is leading us towards Greece,” said Romney. “And one reason we’re going to get rid of him so that we make sure that we don’t continue to have the kind of deficits that lead to Greece. So I hope they keep up with their Greek chorus over there.”

“It is without question the largest one time careless expenditure of government money in American history,” said Romney, still tweaking the stimulus. “And the bad news is it was not just wasteful spending, it was wasteful borrowing as well.”

Romney’s stop in New Hampshire rounded out a week of campaigning across the country, events that all focused on the spending and debt crisis.

Smith said in her statement that Romney’s values of “reaping quick profits for himself and his investors at the expense of workers and communities” are the “values that he wants to bring to the White House by giving more budget-busting tax cuts to the wealthy and letting Wall Street write its own rules-the same formula that benefited a few, but crashed our economy and punished the middle class.”